1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an Internet communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet has become widely used. Typically, Internet communication systems include a function for inputting a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to connect to a desired home page located at a site on the World Wide Web (referred to as WWW, or just xe2x80x9cthe Web,xe2x80x9d hereinafter), and downloading home page data from the home page.
Japanese Patent-application Publication Nos. HEI-9-252393, HEI-9-247334, and HEI-10-4206 disclose Internet facsimile communication systems for receiving and transmitting facsimile data over the Internet.
It is desirable to have an Internet facsimile communication system capable of both transmitting and receiving facsimile data over the Internet, and also capable of downloading and receiving home page data from a particular Web site. Although such an Internet facsimile communication system is conceivable, no such system has been developed.
One potential problem with such a system lays in the need to store both e-mail addresses and URLs in an electronic address book of the system. That is, the e-mail addresses and the URLs would be mixed together, and would also be displayed in this mixed together condition when the address book is displayed for selecting an e-mail address or a URL from the address book. This would make operations for selecting an e-mail address or a URL troublesome, and would produce a situation ripe for making mistakes.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide an Internet communication system capable of receiving and transmitting e-mail and facsimile data over the Internet, and also capable of downloading home page data from Web sites. It is another objective of the present invention to enable using this system to easily select e-mail addresses and URLs as targets of data communication.
In order to achieve these objectives, the present invention is an Internet communication system for communicating data over the Internet, wherein the Internet communication system includes a target register, an Internet command unit, a judgment unit, a target candidate display unit, and a selection unit.
The target register is registered with e-mail addresses and URLs as targets of data communication over the Internet.
The Internet command unit commands data communication over the Internet.
When the Internet command unit commands data communication over the Internet, then the judgment unit judges whether data is to be transmitted to one of the e-mail addresses registered in the target register, or home page data located at one of the URLs registered in the target register is to be downloaded and received.
When the judgment unit judges that data is to be transmitted to one of the e-mail addresses registered in the target register, then the target candidate display unit extracts only e-mail addresses from the target register and displays a list of the extracted e-mail addresses as target candidates. On the other hand, when the judgment unit judges that home page data located at one of the URLs registered in the target register is to be downloaded and received, then the target candidate display unit extracts only URLs from the target register and displays a list of the extracted URLs as target candidates.
The selection unit selects a desired e-mail address or URL from the displayed target candidates.
According to another aspect of the present invention the Internet communication system includes a target register registered with e-mail addresses and URLs as targets of data communication over the Internet; an e-mail command unit that commands transmission of data to one of the e-mail addresses registered in the target register; a homepage data download command unit that commands downloading and reception of home page data located at one of the URLs registered in the target register; a target candidate display unit that extracts only e-mail addresses from the target register and displays a list of the extracted e-mail addresses as target candidates when the e-mail command unit commands transmission of data to one of the e-mail addresses registered in the target register, and extracts only URLs from the target register and displays a list of the extracted URLs as target candidates when the homepage data download command unit commands downloading and reception of home page data located at one of the URLs registered in the target register; and a selection unit that selects a desired e-mail address or URL from the displayed target candidates.